Nintendo, 2K, Gatorade team up to measure virtual biometrics

In a recent Developer Insight video promoting upcoming video game NBA 2K13 for the Nintendo Wii U, 2K Sports producer Ben Bishop introduced the new “Gatorade Biometric Scan,” which allows gamers to keep track of their players’ status and energy levels instantly, nintendolife reported.

Widely-speculated to be one of the hottest tickets this holiday season, the Nintendo Wii U recently made its debut in the United States and has many people buzzing about its unique gamepad orientation and innovative approaches to creating a truly immersive experience.

“One of the really cool features with the Wii U gamepad this year is our Gatorade Biometric Scan and what that does is actually lets you take the gamepad, aim it up at your main screen and what you get on the gamepad is kind of a technical view of the players on the court,” Bishop, a producer of the game said. “You’ll see things like their fatigue levels, and whether or not they’re hot or cold.”

Though it’s debatable whether this feature could actually be considered a biometric, since it’s only gauging the theoretical body temperatures of virtual people, it’s interesting to see this kind of implementation as biometrics become an increasingly important industry and topic of discussion.

Nintendo isn’t the first gaming console to include biometrics into their system. Microsoft has been developing biometric solutions for the Xbox for quite some time. As reported previously in BiometricUpdate, they’ve filed patents for both a biometric controller, and also a system using real-time biometrics for multiplayer games.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  gaming  |  Microsoft  |  patents